Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership

Key Messages

 

​The Gloucestershire Local Nature Recovery Strategy has 6 Key Messages:  

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• Safeguarding, managing and enhancing existing biodiversity-rich sites - The complex ecological relationships between species in a habitat are difficult to recreate quickly once a habitat is degraded or destroyed.  With the pressures on Gloucestershire’s wildlife, the highest priority is to safeguard and enhance high quality nature sites and species populations. Landowners and land managers who are already doing this should be supported.

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• Landscape scale connectivity - Better, bigger, more, and more joined – Working from existing good habitat, these sites should be increased in size, with connective habitat created to join multiple areas of value for wildlife. This is the core theme of Nature Recovery as expressed in the Making Space for Nature report, with the aim of creating a resilient and coherent nature recovery network. Areas put forward for new habitat creation can contribute to meeting the Government’s goal of 30 by 30 - at least 30% of land to be protected for nature recovery by 2030.

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• Climate emergency – Climate change is already affecting our wildlife with temperature, rainfall and growing season changes affecting the timing of natural events such as emergence, pollination and where species can thrive. Nature based solutions can help mitigate some impacts of climate change. Landscape-scale nature recovery will allow species to move and migrate to new or cooler habitat, when the conditions in their existing habitat are no longer suitable due to the impact of climate change.

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• Our relationship with water – Management of our watercourses needs to focus on re-naturalisation, restoration of floodplains and improving water quality. Actions to restore natural meanders and wiggles, along with removing artificial barriers, can have a wealth of benefit both for people and nature, such as slowing the flow of water, creating natural flood resilience and allowing fish to move freely. It is recognised that efforts to improve water quality need to focus on both point and diffuse sources, tackling sources of pollution such as run off, as well as how it moves through the watercourse.

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• The value of mixed and wilder habitats – In the right location, allowing sites to become “messy” and a complex mosaic of scrub, species rich grassland with varying sward heights and bare ground can result in a diverse ecosystem, supporting a wide range of species. The variety in structure also improves climate resilience allowing species to adapt and move between different patches of habitat. These habitats can be created through “natural regeneration” – the process of allowing large herbivores shape and maintain the habitat mosaic, or manual techniques that mimic the way they shape the landscape.

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• Biodiversity in our developments and settlements – The importance of nature in our settlements, urban areas and new developments was emphasised by participants in our public engagement sessions, as well as by other stakeholders. Nature in our urban areas and settlements is important for health and wellbeing, for nature connection, for climate change mitigation and for connecting habitats and wildlife areas within and adjacent to settlements.

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Developing the strategy

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From 2023, ​Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership worked with and supported Gloucestershire County Council to develop Gloucestershire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy, published on 13 February 2026.  Thank you to many partnership member organisations for contributing knowledge and advice to the strategy, and particularly to Gloucestershire Centre for Environmental Records for mapping development and records analysis.

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​​​​During March and April 2024, Gloucestershire County Council, Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership and independent facilitators Holding The Space ran community and public engagement sessions to help bring in a range of views and local knowledge to inform the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy.  You can read what we heard and learned here:  Report on LNRS Community Engagement Workshops

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Delivery Phase

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Gloucestershire County Council is the Responsible Authority for the delivery phase of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy.  The key functions of this delivery phase are likely to be:

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1. Lead and convene a delivery partnership to plan and prioritise delivery

2. Embed the Local Nature Recovery Strategy into local decision making

3. Identify priority strategic projects and facilitate project development

4. Monitor and report on delivery of nature recovery activities in the Local Nature Recovery Strategy area  

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The Local Nature Recovery Strategy will provide a vital tool for planners, farmers, landowners, organisations and communities to work together on shared priorities for nature. 

 

All Local Authorities are required to have regard to Gloucestershire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy in decision and plan making.  The Local Nature Recovery Strategy and its map are a material consideration in the planning system, based on the individual circumstances of the case.

 

With a Local Nature Recovery Officer at Gloucestershire County Council and a strong Local Nature Partnership network across the county, Gloucestershire is ready to turn plans into action.

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The government will ask for Local Nature Recovery Strategies to be reviewed and republished every 3 to 10 years.  

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